Walking Home Ideas: Inspirational Flows

12.02.2017 - Ana Lily Amirpour, Christoph Gröner

Ana Lily Amirpour’s unforgettably atmospheric feature debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, tagged "the first Iranian vampire western,” woos genre-lovers with its cool pastiche of pop-culture references and deliciously romantic mood swings. Although wary of categorizations, Amirpour sees herself as an inventor – not motivated by money but rather by passion – perhaps a bit mad and sometimes also a loner. Taking Bruce Lee’s life philosophies as a launch pad, the Berlinale Talents alumna describes how her ideas flow from a dynamic process of being inspired. Showing clips from her own films and projects and drawing references to other pop-culture inspirations, Amirpour invites the audience to witness a fluid approach to cradling ideas.

Experts

Ana Lily Amirpour

Ana Lily Amirpour made her first film at age 12, a horror movie starring guests of a slumber party. Amirpour's feature directorial debut was A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014). The film garnered significant media attention through its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and was selected to open the New Directors/New Films screening series at the MoMA in New York City, going on to win the "Revelations Prize" at the 2014 Deauville Film Festival, amongst others. At the 2014 Gotham Awards, Amirpour received the Bingham Ray Award for emerging filmmakers whose work exemplifies distinctive creative vision. Amirpour’s sophomore film is a desert-set psychedelic cannibal romance, THE BAD BATCH, starring Jason Momoa, Suki Waterhouse, Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey. The film premiered at the 2016 Venice Film Festival where it took home the Special Jury Prize.

Christoph Gröner

Christopher Gröner is a film festival programmer and film journalist who has written for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt and the trade magazine Blickpunkt: Film, among others. He is a programmer for Filmfest München, where he handles the New German Cinema section and other world premieres. Additionally, he works as a competition programmer for the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and is a consultant on German-speaking regions for the Zurich Film Festival.